He quotes also from
the Twickenham Registers: 'M^{ris} Boulstred out of the parke, was
buried ye 6th of August, 1609.
the Twickenham Registers: 'M^{ris} Boulstred out of the parke, was
buried ye 6th of August, 1609.
John Donne
' Chambers's 'death's dust' means, I suppose, the same
thing, but one can hardly speak of 'both death'.
PAGE =281=, ll. 57-8. _this forward heresie,
That women can no parts of friendship bee. _
Montaigne refers to the same heresy in speaking of 'Marie de Gournay
le Jars, ma fille d'alliance, et certes aymee de moy beaucoup plus que
paternellement, et enveloppee en ma retraitte et solitude comme l'une
des meilleures parties de mon propre estre. Je ne regarde plus qu'elle
au monde. Si l'adolescence peut donner presage, cette ame sera quelque
jour capable des plus belles choses et entre autres de la perfection
de _cette tressaincte amitie ou nous ne lisons point que son sexe ait
pu monter encores_: la sincerite et la solidite de ses moeurs y sont
desja bastantes. ' _Essais_ (1590), ii. 17.
PAGE =282=. ELEGIE ON M^{ris} BOULSTRED.
Cecilia Boulstred, or Bulstrode, was the daughter of Hedgerley
Bulstrode, of Bucks. She was baptized at Beaconsfield, February 12,
1583/4, and died at the house of her kinswoman, Lady Bedford, at
Twickenham, on August 4, 1609. So Mr. Chambers, from Sir James
Whitelocke's _Liber Famelicus_ (Camden Society).
He quotes also from
the Twickenham Registers: 'M^{ris} Boulstred out of the parke, was
buried ye 6th of August, 1609. ' In a letter to Goodyere Donne speaks
of her illness: 'but (by my troth) I fear earnestly that Mistresse
Bolstrod will not escape that sicknesse in which she labours at this
time. I sent this morning to aske of her passage this night, and the
return is, that she is as I left her yesternight, and then by the
strength of her understanding, and voyce, (proportionally to her
fashion, which was ever remisse) by the eavenesse and life of her
pulse, and by her temper, I could allow her long life, and impute all
her sicknesse to her minde. But the History of her sicknesse makes me
justly fear, that she will scarce last so long, as that you, when you
receive this letter, may do her any good office in praying for her. '
Poor Miss Bulstrode, whose
voice was
Gentle and low, an excellent thing in woman,
has not lived to fame in an altogether happy fashion, as the subject
of some tortured and tasteless _Epicedes_, a coarse and brutal Epigram
by Jonson (_An Epigram on the Court Pucell_ in _Underwoods_,--Jonson
told Drummond that the person intended was Mris Boulstred), a
complimentary, not to say adulatory, _Epitaph_ from the same pen, and
a dubious _Elegy_ by Sir John Roe ('Shall I goe force an Elegie,' p.
410). It was an ugly place, the Court of James I, as full of cruel
libels as of gross flattery, a fit subject for Milton's scorn. The
epitaph which Jonson wrote is found in more than one MS. , and in some
where Donne's poems are in the majority. Chambers very tentatively
suggested that it might be by Donne himself, and I was inclined for a
time to accept this conjecture, finding it in other MSS. besides those
he mentioned, and because the sentiment of the closing lines is quite
Donnean. But in the Farmer-Chetham MS. (ed. Grosart) it is signed B.
J. , and Mr.
thing, but one can hardly speak of 'both death'.
PAGE =281=, ll. 57-8. _this forward heresie,
That women can no parts of friendship bee. _
Montaigne refers to the same heresy in speaking of 'Marie de Gournay
le Jars, ma fille d'alliance, et certes aymee de moy beaucoup plus que
paternellement, et enveloppee en ma retraitte et solitude comme l'une
des meilleures parties de mon propre estre. Je ne regarde plus qu'elle
au monde. Si l'adolescence peut donner presage, cette ame sera quelque
jour capable des plus belles choses et entre autres de la perfection
de _cette tressaincte amitie ou nous ne lisons point que son sexe ait
pu monter encores_: la sincerite et la solidite de ses moeurs y sont
desja bastantes. ' _Essais_ (1590), ii. 17.
PAGE =282=. ELEGIE ON M^{ris} BOULSTRED.
Cecilia Boulstred, or Bulstrode, was the daughter of Hedgerley
Bulstrode, of Bucks. She was baptized at Beaconsfield, February 12,
1583/4, and died at the house of her kinswoman, Lady Bedford, at
Twickenham, on August 4, 1609. So Mr. Chambers, from Sir James
Whitelocke's _Liber Famelicus_ (Camden Society).
He quotes also from
the Twickenham Registers: 'M^{ris} Boulstred out of the parke, was
buried ye 6th of August, 1609. ' In a letter to Goodyere Donne speaks
of her illness: 'but (by my troth) I fear earnestly that Mistresse
Bolstrod will not escape that sicknesse in which she labours at this
time. I sent this morning to aske of her passage this night, and the
return is, that she is as I left her yesternight, and then by the
strength of her understanding, and voyce, (proportionally to her
fashion, which was ever remisse) by the eavenesse and life of her
pulse, and by her temper, I could allow her long life, and impute all
her sicknesse to her minde. But the History of her sicknesse makes me
justly fear, that she will scarce last so long, as that you, when you
receive this letter, may do her any good office in praying for her. '
Poor Miss Bulstrode, whose
voice was
Gentle and low, an excellent thing in woman,
has not lived to fame in an altogether happy fashion, as the subject
of some tortured and tasteless _Epicedes_, a coarse and brutal Epigram
by Jonson (_An Epigram on the Court Pucell_ in _Underwoods_,--Jonson
told Drummond that the person intended was Mris Boulstred), a
complimentary, not to say adulatory, _Epitaph_ from the same pen, and
a dubious _Elegy_ by Sir John Roe ('Shall I goe force an Elegie,' p.
410). It was an ugly place, the Court of James I, as full of cruel
libels as of gross flattery, a fit subject for Milton's scorn. The
epitaph which Jonson wrote is found in more than one MS. , and in some
where Donne's poems are in the majority. Chambers very tentatively
suggested that it might be by Donne himself, and I was inclined for a
time to accept this conjecture, finding it in other MSS. besides those
he mentioned, and because the sentiment of the closing lines is quite
Donnean. But in the Farmer-Chetham MS. (ed. Grosart) it is signed B.
J. , and Mr.
